


On Being (or Not) A Gun [Meta]

by osteophage



Category: Iron Giant (1999), Machineries of Empire Series - Yoon Ha Lee
Genre: Gen, Meta, Nonfiction, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-03
Updated: 2020-03-03
Packaged: 2021-02-22 22:55:12
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,596
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23001727
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/osteophage/pseuds/osteophage
Summary: Metacommentary comparing the themes in The Machineries of Empire and The Iron Giant, specifically on autonomy, objectification, and violence.
Kudos: 12
Collections: March Meta Matters Challenge





	On Being (or Not) A Gun [Meta]

**Author's Note:**

> This work is being posted to AO3 for the March Meta Matters Challenge, originally posted to [Pillowfort on January 30, 2020](https://www.pillowfort.social/posts/1071562). Contains plot ending spoilers for The Iron Giant & vague/minor spoilers for TMOE.

Despite the difference in tone and audience, there's some interesting thematic overlap (and divergence) between _The Iron Giant_ and the Machineries of Empire series, so I want to do some thinking out loud about that. 

Both stories explore themes of autonomy and violence, including the objectification of their characters as weapons, while taking those themes in two very different directions. Essentially, _The Iron Giant_ celebrates a heroic figure choosing to resist his programming, while TMOE constrains its characters into a near-total state of resignation. Some of the latter do have compassionate impulses, but the difference in outcome between them and the Giant is a matter of narrative agency. 

**"I am not a gun."**

In _The Iron Giant_ , at least three conditions allow for the Giant's narrative agency: 

1) When the Giant arrives and awakes on Earth, he is amnesiac and childlike, unable to remember his origins or even his own abilities. This allows him a "blank slate" outlook on the world and his purpose in relation to it. Initially, he doesn't even know about the concept of death or guns. These are introduced to him in the scene where the hunters shoot and kill a deer, from which he learns the lesson that ["guns kill."](https://youtu.be/casYoVw20mQ?t=63)

2) The Giant has an ethical mentor figure in the form of Hogarth, who teaches him that ["it's bad to kill."](https://youtu.be/casYoVw20mQ?t=135) The Giant's compassion for life on Earth leads him to wholeheartedly accept this perspective and its importance. 

3) There are not really any characters in the story who are more dangerous than the Giant. Since he's lost contact with those who sent him, he does not have to worry about being punished for his actions by someone above him in a chain of command. Physically, as well, he's impervious to most conventional weaponry. 

On account of these conditions, the Giant is enabled with the freedom to choose a heroic character arc. In a scene following the "guns kill" and "it's bad to kill" story beats, the Giant discovers he's equipped with lethal technology that can be triggered by accident -- as Dean puts it, [he's "a weapon, a big gun that walks."](https://youtu.be/BPvtRdOMzeg?t=70) Despite being engineered this way, however, this isn't what the Giant wants for himself. In the end, he chooses to be compassionate and self-sacrificing rather than lean into his destructive potential, as expressed by his [most famous line](https://www.rogerebert.com/demanders/i-am-not-a-gun-the-timelessness-of-the-iron-giant): the emphatic and deliberate ["I am _not_ a gun."](https://youtu.be/PzwdVmoaY_k?t=105)

What "I am not a gun" represents in this story is three intertwined commitments: the Giant's compassion for life, his dedication to nonviolence, and his willness to sacrifice his own wellbeing for the wellbeing of others. In the movie, the line is spoken after he saves the falling children. The same sentiment is also expressed, I'd argue, in his (partially successful) efforts to [resist his defensive programing](https://youtu.be/e_zad8Vsdeg?t=127), something he struggles with out of a dedication to nonviolence. Lastly, in the climax of the movie, he sacrifices himself by taking out the missile in order to save the town, rather than take revenge on the humans for attacking him. 

It's a touching story. It's also the kind of story that can only happen when there's enough narrative agency to allow for it. The Giant is able to choose selfless heroics because the limitations constraining him are fairly minimal and allow him the freedom for his choices to matter. In TMOE, the members of the hexarchate are portrayed as living with far less autonomy in their world, no matter how powerful or dangerous they are as individuals. Shoot the enemy or don't, but if you don't, then someone else will take your place and do it for you. 

**"I'm your gun."**

It's in this oppressive context that we're introduced to Shuos Jedao, a man who's dehumanized as thoroughly as the Giant is, if not more. Like the Giant, he's understood less of a person than a weapon, and like the Giant, he's negatively impacted by the deaths of others, even sometimes pitying the people he kills. The difference is that unlike the Giant, he's resigned himself to that as inevitability. 

From the perspective of other characters, Jedao is essentially a tool of destruction. Early on in Ninefox Gambit, for instance, there's a scene from Shuos Mikodez's POV that refers to Jedao in objectifying terms: 

> He was certain that their best candidate for dealing with the matter was the best candidate for being authorized to use a certain Shuos weapon, the _oldest_ Shuos weapon, especially since said weapon was in the Kel Arsenal. Heptarch Shuos Khiaz, who had signed it (or him, take your pick) over to Kel control 398 years ago, in a fit of towering spite, had a lot to answer for. [...] 
> 
> Kujen shouldn't have a say in a military decision anway, except no one else was capable of overseeing the particular weapon Kel Command wanted to deploy. 

Jedao is the weapon, the "it," being casually dehumanized here (something which endeared him to me instantly by the way). 

No other character in the book gets referred to like this, but in a way, it's just a more extreme form of what's otherwise the norm in the hexarchate military. In-world, this norm is represented in the traditional phrase "I'm your gun." When we're first introduced to that phrase on the page, the narration notes, "A Kel might say that ceremonially to a superior, and even then only on the highest of occasions." The statement symbolizes commitment and subservience by objectifying oneself both as a possession ("yours") and as a weapon, specifically. Jedao might not be a Kel, but he did transfer to the Kel military, and he's the character that uses the phrase most frequently in the series. 

What makes this all the more significant is that Jedao doesn't _like_ being a "gun." He doesn't treat killing as anything easy or gratifying, and he never relies on dehumanizing his opponents; if anything, he shows more empathy than most (which is interesting for the separation of "empathy" from "outward kindness"). Most importantly, he claims to _dislike_ getting people killed. 

> "We're going to have to confront the Fortress sooner or later," Cheris said. "It might as well be sooner. With any luck, fewer people will die this way." 
> 
> "Good," Jedao said crisply. "I'm glad we care about the same things." 
> 
> It was an odd thing for a mass murderer to say, and she wouldn't figure out its significance until much later. 

For all his internal feelings about it, though, Jedao doesn't hesitate to hurt people. Even in-world, Jedao is considered extreme in his propensity for violence. Arguably this is proven by the fact that a Kel instructor describes threshold winnowers -- now associated with Jedao's massacre -- to be "a weapon of last resort." With that said, this is also discussed in another scene from Mikodez's POV (and note, I think it's important not to take this exchange at face value): 

> "You say this like I'm going to have time for extracurricular activities. This fucking swarm doesn't run itself, you know." 
> 
> "Tell me," Mikodez said in exasperation, "what the hell would you do if there weren't a war on?" 
> 
> Jedao faltered. For a moment his eyes were wrenchingly young. "I don't know," he said. "I don't know how to do anything else." 
> 
> Which meant, although there was no way that Jedao was ready to admit it to himself, that he'd start a war just to have something to do. 

First of all, Mikodez, you are getting played. You are getting played like a tambourine, even if we don't account for [spoilers]. A man like you ought to know better. But then again, that's the trouble with thinking you've already got someone figured out, isn't it? 

On the one hand, it's not true that Jedao "doesn't know how to do anything else" (technically, anyway; the dude has other skills). What this exchange highlights is more about how Mikodez perceives him and how well Jedao can act the role. On the other hand, I do think we can take this as an invitation to consider Jedao's shortcomings. 

The man does, in fact, have a disproportionate tendency to approach problem-solving in terms of violence. Although he's far more creative than the average Kel, the fact remains that in order to accomplish [spoilers], the plan he came up with was to kill one million people. Killing people was and remains his go-to option, just so long as he can justify it to himself as a part of the long game. And for all his emphasis on hearts & minds as an essential part of understanding warfare, it still remains exactly that: warfare. When all you have is a hammer, as they say, everything looks like a nail. 

Add it all up and what you get is this: Shuos Jedao faced narrative constraints that would have made the Giant's rejection of violence feel like an impossibility for him. Unlike the Giant, Jedao was surrounded by people who could impose their violent expectations on him. Unlike the Giant, Jedao never really had an ethical mentor figure who could show him another way, to pull him off course, to convince him that that there were other options worth taking. Unlike the Giant, Jedao was just a human being who could (and did) get executed. Taking the full trilogy into account, the tragedy of Jedao's character arc isn't just that he vowed to be Kujen's gun, that he chose to kill, or that he sacrificed others' lives in the name of his plans. It's also that -- both times over -- he didn't think he really had a choice.


End file.
